In my many years of going to the pub, I can honestly say that I’d never had a conversation about the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov there before.

But the absence was redressed, some time ago now, in an over-a-pint conversation with my friend David (the psychologist).

He’d been teaching his degree students about stress, and the gist of his lecture was, as you may well know, that it’s life’s daily hassles that generally lead to the most stress, rather than big life-changing issues.

The daily hassles become cumulative (they stand on one another’s shoulders to gradually overpower you) and, one after the other, they become amplified (they start off seeming inconsequential, but gradually assume more and more importance).

The trick, if there is one, is probably to be aware of the phenomenon, so you’re aware of incoming hassles.

But what about old Chekhov? Well as a man with a way with words, he summed it all up very nicely:

‘Any idiot can face a crisis, it is this day-to-day living that wears you out.’